$1 Million from Zayed Environment Prize to 4 Pioneers – AFED

Zayed International Prize for the Environment awarded $1 million to four environmental pioneers, including Najib Saab, Editor-in-Chief of Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia magazine and Secretary General of Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED). At a ceremony held today in Dubai International Convention Center, Saab was honored for Environmental Action Leading to Positive Change in Society, by the prize patron, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.

Also honored was the laureate for Global Leadership, President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-Bak, “who seized the moment of the recent economic and financial crisis to commit his country to a low carbon, more resource efficient green economic path.”

Sir Partha Dasgupta, an Indian British economist who has been pivotal in making the link between wealth and the natural resource base or “natural capital”, was awarded for Scientific Achievement. Also honored for Environmental Action was the Swiss national Mathis Wackernagel, co-founder of the Global Footprint Network (GFN) which is catalyzing awareness and action on humanity environmental impact.

The ceremony was attended by top UAE officials, Arab and foreign environment ministers, ambassadors, diplomats and leading environmentalists, in addition to a large Korean delegate including 5 ministers and a number of CEOs. Also present were heads of regional and international organizations, media representatives, in addition to the Jury chaired by Prof. Klaus Töpfer, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and members of the Prize technical advisory committee. Documentaries about the laureates were broadcast during the ceremony.

UAE Minister of Environment and Water Dr. Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad declared that Najib Saab was awarded for Environmental Action Leading to Positive Change in Society “because his influential and highly successful Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia magazine triggered unprecedented environmental awareness at all levels, built a new relationship between the policy-makers and people of the Arab world with the issues of environment and sustainability, and placed the environment high on national and regional agendas.”

Saab Warns of Nature’s Bankruptcy

After receiving his award, Saab said: “I am proud to receive an award named after Sheikh Zayed, who had a comprehensive vision about the relationship between environment and development, stemming from his wisdom and clairvoyance.” He hoped that winning this prize would contribute to increasing environmental awareness, encouraging initiatives and convincing decision makers in the Arab region to place the environment among their top priorities, especially in oil producing countries where talks about preservation are sometimes taken as antagonistic. Saab called upon governments to use oil incomes to invest in clean technologies that support transitioning to sustainable development practices.

“We cannot afford the continuous depletion of our natural resources,” he added. “Instead of talking about depletion of oil, let us direct our attention towards the water depletion crisis. The current development policies in the Arab world still depend on squandering natural resources beyond nature’s ability to regenerate them, which absolutely leads to bankruptcy.” He warned that “while governments can face financial bankruptcy by printing banknotes, they cannot face nature’s bankruptcy by printing water or air.”

Hoping that Zayed Prize will support AFED’s position as a regional organization seeking to improve environmental policies in the Arab world, Saab concluded: “Such achievements cannot be reached by individuals, and I thank Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia team who worked with me during the past years.”

Lee for Environmental Leadership

President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-Bak was described by Minister Bin Fahad to have “seized the moment of recent economic and financial crisis to commit his country to ‘Green Growth’, a new paradigm for economic development that binds together environment protection and economic prosperity, creating new growth engines and jobs through green technology and clean energy. President Lee’s vision and leadership was a central driver in transforming the Republic of Korea’s development path into a low carbon, resource efficient, and Green Economy.”

The Prize

Zayed International Prize for Environment was established in 2001 by Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to acknowledge the environmental commitment of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It is worth $1 million, and is one of the most valuable environmental award in the world. Previous winners include Jimmy Carter, the former President of the United States, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, and Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and UN special climate envoy.

The International Jury for the Fifth Cycle of Zayed International Prize for Environment was chaired by Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and former German Environment Minister. The Jury also included Dr. Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahad, UAE Minister of Environment and Water, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, Dr. Mostafa Kamal Tolba, World renowned scientist and former Executive Director of UNEP, and Dr. Oktay Tabasaran, a pioneer of environmental science and the 5th World Water Forum Secretary General.

Below are biographies of the laureates, according to a statement issued by the Jury.

NAJIB SAAB

Najib Saab founded the groundbreaking and highly successful Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia (Environment and Development) magazine in 1996. The magazine triggered unprecedented environmental awareness at all levels, built a new relationship between the policy-makers and people of the Arab world with the issues of environment and sustainability, and placed the environment high on national and regional agendas.

The magazine and Mr Saab’s vision also acted as a spring board for a wider pan-Arab initiative which catalyzed in 2006 the establishment of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED). The organization soon developed into a leading think-tank, pivotal in shaping environmental policies, mainly through its independent annual reports on the state of the Arab environment. AFED runs programmes on corporate environmental responsibility, capacity building and education, and has a unique membership structure grouping private sector, civil society, universities and media, together with government bodies as observers.

The magazine itself has evolved as key curriculum material for schools, and helped establish hundreds of school-based environment clubs. Meanwhile, twelve leading daily newspapers now publish a syndicated monthly environment column by Mr Saab, and a weekly or monthly environment page in association with AFED. Saab has produced and presented a series of powerful documentaries on environmental challenges in the Arab countries, which are broadcast frequently on national and regional television networks.

An established architect who grew up in a publishing family, Mr. Saab opted to leave a lucrative practice, devoting himself to advance the cause of environment in the Arab region.

A Lebanese national who describes himself as globalist, Najib Saab has done more than most to bring environment into the day to day discourse within governments, the private sector and among the public and grassroots in the Arab world.

LEE MYUNG-BAK

The jury considered President Lee Myung-Bak’s vision and leadership as a central driver in transforming the Republic of Korea’s development path into a low carbon, resource efficient, Green Economy one. The President has also championed the strategy within the Asian region and globally since announcing, in August 2008, a commitment to Green Growth where long term prosperity allied to sustainability across the economy is a key objective.

In January 2009, the Republic of Korea announced a stimulus package of just over $38 billion of which 80 per cent was allocated to themes such as waste, energy, forestry, rail networks, energy efficient buildings, renewable energy and low-carbon vehicles. The level is the highest ratio of environmental investments to stimulus package among the G20 governments. In July last year, a Five Year Green Growth Plan with a total funding of just over $84 billion was announced amounting to two per cent of the country’s GDP and covering the period 2009 to 2013.

“By extending Korea’s “Green New Deal” into a full five-year development road map, President Le Myung-Bak and South Korea have signaled that Green Growth is a strategy well beyond current economic recovery efforts and is intended to fashion a green economic future. This has the potential of starting a domino effect on the major Asian economies,” says the jury’s citation.

PARTHA DASGUPTA

Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and one of the most outstanding environmental economists of his generation. An Indian national, he has been one of the leading economists making the link between sustainability and economics in many ways well before such work was fashionable or fully understood.

Professor Dasgupta coined the term “inclusive wealth” to spotlight the way conventional measures of wealth-primarily GDP-fail to capture natural capital or environmental assets.

His book Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment was a seminal and landmark work which argued that many economies may superficially appear to be growing and getting richer, but that when environmental losses are factored in, may actually be getting poorer.

While conservationists have been warning of this for years, Professor Dasgupta is one of the first economists to have developed the data.

MATHIS WACKERNAGEL

Dr Mathis Wackernagel has, through the co-founding of the GFN in 2003, translated the complexity of humanity’s impact on the environment and natural resources into a more understandable and actionable form. The concept of ‘ecological limits’ and relating the demands of human beings to the planet’s available ecological resources, has attracted and is catalyzing action among governments, business and civil society.

Under Swiss-born Dr Wackernagel’s leadership, the Footprint is now recognized as a leading and highly comprehensible indicator of sustainability. To date the network is working with more than 90 partner bodies including the Finnish Ministry of the Environment; Australia’s State of Victoria and South Australian authorities; two Swiss banks; WWF and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Through its Ten-in-Ten Campaign, aimed at institutionalizing the Footprint in 10 countries by 2015, nations including Belgium, Ecuador, Japan, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates are already engaged.